


Winning Isn't Everything (except that it is)

by nu_breed



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-08
Updated: 2011-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:07:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nu_breed/pseuds/nu_breed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for eloquent toast's Merlin Wankfest.  The prompt was <i>Arthur gets hot and bothered by the thrill of winning tourneys, and sometimes has to wank between rounds to take the edge off. One way or another, Merlin discovers this and decides to lend a hand.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Winning Isn't Everything (except that it is)

Everyone knows Arthur likes to win. It’s so deeply ingrained in him that the thought of losing, well, it just never comes into his head. His father always taught him to win at any cost, and so it’s really no surprise that losing is a word that just does not exist in the Pendragon vocabulary.

Arthur’s heard them all whispering “Loves to win, doesn’t he? Did you see his face that time he got bested? Thought he was going to pout for a week!” and variations thereof for most of his life. But it isn’t that he loves to win, or he hates to lose. He _needs_ to win. He can feel it in every fibre, every nerve ending. When he loses, it doesn’t feel like anything. It makes him numb, like there’s something missing, and he usually doesn’t lose that general sense of unease till the next successful fight or joust or tourney.

When he wins though? It makes him feel like he’s alive; his skin feel like it’s on fire and the excitement, the thrill from it is there, bubbling under the surface and ready to explode. The euphoria is unlike anything else, but the result is not always appropriate for polite company. It makes Arthur sweat, makes him breathless, and it makes him ache with desire, hard and wanting and in desperate need of release.

He wonders what they all would say if they could see him in his tent between rounds. It doesn’t take long, his hand quickly unlacing his breeches and shoving inside to stroke himself just the way he likes it. Long rough strokes which bring him to the brink faster than he ever would’ve thought possible.

Or afterwards, in his bedchamber, naked, while he grinds his hips forward driving his cock into his own fist. He takes his time; eyes closed, head thrown back, imagining what it would feel like to have someone else there with him to touch and lick and suck him. Someone with unkempt hair and deep blue eyes and ridiculous ears, and a mouth that was made to be debauched. Someone who never does what he’s told, regardless of the consequences.

Arthur is very careful not to yell Merlin’s name when he comes.

***

Arthur wonders if it’s possible to die from lack of release. He’d been stuck talking to that dreadful Lady Anne’s insipid chit of a daughter all evening, who obviously had some deluded notion that Arthur was interested in her. He concluded after what felt like hours in her company that her breasts, while spectacular, do not make up for her incessant prattle, and they most certainly do not make up for her laugh which has more in common with a braying donkey than a woman.

It had taken him so long to get away that he’d contemplated having Merlin save him with some stammered, badly thought-up excuse that would probably send him to the stocks.  
However, Merlin was nowhere to be found. Typical. He thinks if Merlin ever exhibited any kind of behaviour that helped him at all, Arthur might just keel over from the shock of it.

By the time Arthur actually makes an escape to his quarters he’s so hard it hurts, and he thinks he might cry from the sheer frustration of it all. He’s so impatient that instead of walking the few paces to his bed, he slumps in the chair just inside the door and gets his breeches undone and shoved down to his knees within seconds.

“Well,” Merlin says, breaking the silence, and just about giving Arthur an apoplexy in the process, “someone was in a bit of a hurry, weren’t they?”

Arthur tries to salvage what’s left of his dignity by covering himself up as best he can, but it’s a little late for that. Merlin is lying on his bed, feet crossed at the ankles, and looking like the proverbial cat that just ate the canary.

“Merlin,” Arthur manages to get out through gritted teeth, “what the hell. Are you doing. On my bed?”

“Waiting for you,” Merlin replies. His voice is deep and rich and really not fair given the fact that Arthur is barely managing to hold himself together. Merlin’s voice seems to have some magical connection with his cock, judging from the way it throbs in response.

Merlin grins even wider, the little bastard, and crosses his arms behind his head. The action makes his tunic ride up, but nowhere near enough. Arthur wonders what Merlin’s skin looks like. More importantly, he wonders what it would taste like on his tongue.

The thought makes Arthur groan out loud before he can catch himself.

“I’ve seen you,” Merlin says, getting up from the bed and walking over. Arthur doesn’t want Merlin to see him like this: barely in control, his cheeks hot and his hands clammy. Not to mention the fact that his cock is barely covered up by the dishevelled mess he is making of his breeches.

“Stroking yourself between rounds, when you think no-one can see you,” Merlin continues, “always coming back with your face so flushed. Makes me need to go and. Because I can’t think, can barely even breathe around you, let alone when I know you’ve.”

Merlin’s breathing sounds laboured, and Arthur’s head is spinning, trying to make sense of what Merlin is saying. He’s going insane at the idea that Merlin has to touch himself because of Arthur, and he barely notices when he finds himself sitting in the chair again, and Merlin is undressing him, pulling his breeches down. He can’t recall how it happened, and he doesn’t really care.

“I...” he tries to think of something witty, something to lighten the mood and distract them both from the seriousness of what seems to be happening, but Arthur’s throat seizes up when Merlin just stares at his crotch and licks his lips.

Merlin’s mouth is lush and full and wet, and Arthur wants to kiss it. He wants to do much filthier things to it too. He gasps as Merlin drops to his knees and strokes up the inside of Arthur’s thighs until he reaches his cock. Merlin brushes the tip of it with the pad of his thumb, and it comes away wet. Arthur laughs; a nervous explosion of a laugh which turns into a whimper when Merlin shoves his thumb into his own mouth and sucks on it with his eyes closed, like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted in his life.

“God, Merlin,” Arthur whispers, “I can’t believe you.” He drops his hand to his cock, but before he can get any kind of pressure on it, Merlin is batting his hand away and replacing it with his own, not touching yet just hovering there.

“Let me do it,” he begs, “please.”

Arthur hesitates, because it’s one thing to think about this alone in his bed at night, bringing himself off while he thinks about Merlin’s hands and mouth on him, but it’s completely another to let Merlin touch him. To let himself have the thing he’s wanted for months.

“If you touch me,” he says out loud, holding Merlin’s gaze, “there’s no going back. I mean it, Merlin.”

Arthur knows that once he’s felt Merlin touch him, he won’t ever be able to forget what it feels like.

“Just.” Merlin looks up at him, and he looks so desperate, so eager to please that it makes Arthur’s cock pulse, “Let me service you, sire. Arthur. _Please_.”

“You little. Christ.” Arthur groans, grabbing Merlin and hauling him up onto his lap, “Do it then. Touch me, Merlin. Give me your hand, your mouth, I don’t care. ”

Merlin straddles Arthur, thighs on either sides of Arthur’s hips and starts to stroke. His hand is rough and calloused and it feels wonderful. Arthur grabs a handful of Merlin’s hair and holds him in place, kissing him rough and wet and it’s so unbelievably good. Merlin just opens for him like he’s been waiting as long as Arthur has for this, and maybe he has, but Arthur can’t think about that right now. All he can think about is Merlin’s hand on his cock, and Merlin’s mouth under his and it isn’t long before he’s thrusting his hips forward and fucking himself into the tight circle of Merlin’s hand, biting at his lips and whimpering Merlin’s name as he comes.

“Arthur,” Merlin manages to grind out, “you’re so. God.”

Arthur opens his mouth to make a retort about how eloquent his servant isn’t, but it’s lost as soon as he sees Merlin sucking his own fingers into his mouth like a harlot, tasting Arthur’s release as he rubs himself with his other hand and comes in his own breeches.

Merlin is going to be the death of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Linds for the beta.


End file.
